


Flying Too Close To The Sun

by watanuki_sama



Category: Common Law
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, M/M, Wesvis, Wingfic, Wings, aw yeah, spoilers for the finale, that's right i wrote a wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-13
Updated: 2014-08-13
Packaged: 2018-02-12 23:05:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2127804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/watanuki_sama/pseuds/watanuki_sama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When they meet, Wes’s wings are tiny, ratty things, hanging off his back like limp feather dusters, and Travis’s wings furl in sympathy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flying Too Close To The Sun

**Author's Note:**

> Today is my birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME. Because I love wings.
> 
> Anything that does not strictly follow canon falls under the Rule of AU.
> 
> Title from the song "Icarus" by Bastille.
> 
> Also posted on FF.net under the penname 'EFAW' on 08.12.14.

_“Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.”_  
 _—Leonardo da Vinci_

\---

When they meet, Wes’s wings are tiny, ratty things, hanging off his back like limp feather dusters. It’s completely at odds with the blonde’s impeccable suit and polished façade. Travis’s own wings furl against his back in sympathy and he does his best not to stare.

Paekman shoots him a look, as if to say _Don’t ask, don’t make fun of him._ Travis isn’t stupid—he knows better.

So he smiles and shakes Wes’s hand, and then they start talking about missing girls and potential serial killers and Wes’s wings fade from his mind.

The thought doesn’t disappear; how could it? But he knows better than to ask.

\---

Travis’s wings are like a parrot’s, bright swaths of color exploding from his back. Reds, greens, blues, all patterned to draw the eye first. Every psychiatrist he’s ever had says they’re so bright to draw attention, to make up for his upbringing and the invisibility he felt as a foster child. Travis claims that bright colors help draw in the ladies.

Paekman’s wings are a calm, serene honey color, dusted lightly with goldenrod. They lay calmly against his back, rarely fluttering or fidgeting, like Paekman is totally at ease with himself and his place in the world. Travis refuses to admit he started growing yellow feathers because he was jealous of his friend.

Wes’s wings are a dull, boring, lifeless grey, like an overcast sky, like ashes. Wes acts completely confident in everything he does, but wings are a lot more subconscious than people realize, and Wes’s fidget and flinch whenever anyone gets too close, and whenever they’re out in public Wes’s wings furl up against his back, folding in on his spine as though he’s trying to curl in on himself and disappear.

\---

They catch a serial killer.

It takes six weeks of legwork and late nights at the office, but they finally catch the guy taking the working girls. It’s the biggest bust either of them have ever had—exhilarating and heart-pounding and Travis has never felt more alive.

In the flashing lights, Wes shoots him a grin, an _I can’t believe we just did that_ sort of expression. Travis laughs breathlessly, riding high.

The next day at the press conference, Travis notices a tiny line of pitch black feathers on the underside of Wes’s wing. Travis can’t help but nudge the blonde and whisper, “Looking good, Mitchell.”

Wes preens, and it’s the most confident Travis has seen him since they met.

\---

It’s not that Travis cares. Because he doesn’t. The state of Wes’s wings is Wes’s business, and it doesn’t matter to Travis and he doesn’t care at all.

It’s just…he remembers the look on Wes’s face when they caught the Gentleman Caller, like all his pain and suffering culminated in that moment to validate everything he’d been through. He remembers the tiny line of shiny new black feathers, and how proud Wes was of them. 

And he sees the looks people send Wes’s way, looks of scorn and superiority when they see Wes’s shabby grey wings. Snap judgements made before Wes ever opens his mouth, because people suck and things haven’t changed all that much.

So Travis tries to help, because they’re partners now and that’s what partners do, cover each other and support one another. He listens to Wes’s ideas and he occasionally agrees when Wes makes a good point, and he bickers with Wes because sometimes Travis feels like Wes needs nothing more than to blow off some steam.

And he watches Wes’s wings change, new feathers replacing the lifeless old ones. These are raven black like a fledgling being born anew and they lie flat and smooth. The wingspan doesn’t grow any, but Wes stops trying to curl his wings into his spine whenever they go out, so Travis counts it as a win.

\---

It takes a year for Travis to earn enough brownie points to get invited over to the Mitchell homestead. He brings a pie and tells himself to be polite and not flirt with his partner’s wife.

Alex has large, sleek wings that arch elegantly over her shoulders. They’re a gorgeous rich mahogany color with deep crimson highlights. There are a few faded colorless patches, probably from stress, but they don’t detract in the slightest from the power and confidence she exudes. She must be a force of nature in the courtroom.

“You are exquisite,” he says first thing, which kind of blows his ‘no flirting’ plan out of the air.

Luckily, she just laughs and says, “You’re just as charming as Wes described.”

Travis gives her his best smile. “Why thank you.”

“I don’t think he meant it as a compliment.”

“Huh.” Travis thinks about it, then lights up. “But he _does_ talk about me.”

“Oh, he talks about you _all_ the time,” Alex confides, slipping her arm in Travis’s and leading him inside. In a stage whisper, she adds, “Sometimes he even says _nice_ things.”

Wes pokes his head out of the kitchen with a mock scowl. “That’s slander. I’ve never said a nice thing about Travis in my life.”

Travis laughs and everything feels wonderful.

\---

It’s said that the closer a couple is, the more their wings start to look alike.

There’s a picture on the mantel of Wes and Alex, posing together. They’re leaning close and holding hands and they’ve each got one wing spread out.

In the picture, Wes’s wings are a lighter mahogany, and the highlights in his feathers are the color of crushed grapes rather than crimson, but the similarities are obvious.

Once upon a time, Wes and Alex were extremely close.

Now Wes’s wings are half the size and they’ve lost all color, and Alex has white feathers from the stress.

Sometimes, it’s much too easy to see how far couples have fallen apart.

\---

Dinner is full of jokes and stories from Travis’s childhood that have Alex in stitches, and even Wes cracks a few smiles. It’s cheery and warm and Travis thinks this is what a perfect family feels like.

After, when Wes is cutting pie in the kitchen and Travis and Alex are sequestered on the couch with wine, Alex sighs and says, “Thank you.”

Travis pauses, glass halfway to his lips. “For what?”

She gives him a small smile. “For everything. For helping my husband. For being you.”

He gives an awkward chuckle; his wings flutter in embarrassment. “I haven’t done anything.”

“You’ve helped more than you know.” Alex’s smile turns melancholy. “I tried to help, afterwards. It didn’t do much. I just…I wasn’t enough.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

Alex gives a wry little quirk of her lips. “It’s true. I was too close to what he’d lost, so I wasn’t able to do him any good.”

Right then and there, Travis vows to find out exactly what happened to Wes.

“But then he met you.” She smiles over her wine glass, and her eyes are sad. “You were… _are_ exactly what he needs. You did what I couldn’t—you brought a little bit of my husband back. So thank you.”

Travis really doesn’t know what to say to that, so he’s quite glad when Wes pokes his head out and eyes them suspiciously.

“What are you two talking about?”

Travis grins and says easily, “I’m planning to whisk your wife away. What do you think, Alex? Costa Rica?”

“Bermuda,” Alex plays along, “Definitely Bermuda this time of year.”

Wes narrows his eyes. “Keep in mind, I am holding a knife, _and_ I control the pie.”

“Sorry Alex,” Travis says without hesitation, “if it’s you or pie, I gotta choose the pie.”

Alex gasps dramatically and flops on the couch in a faux swoon. Wes shakes his head, like he can’t quite understand their foolishness, and disappears back into the kitchen.

The moment is broken, but Alex’s words linger.

\---

(It takes another two years before Travis learns the full story about Anthony Padua. Puzzle pieces fall into place, and everything about Wes makes so much more sense.)

\---

In their third year together, Travis falls. A fleeing suspect shoves him off a third-story fire escape. It’s not a huge fall, but Travis’s wings flail wildly and he lands badly on his ankle.

Wes drives him home, after they’ve dropped the suspect off at the precinct and the EMTs have assured Travis he’ll be fine. They don’t talk on the drive; they don’t talk as Wes helps Travis hobble into his trailer.

And then Wes doesn’t leave. He sits next to Travis on the couch and looks like he wants to say something, but doesn’t know what, because Wes isn’t any good at comforting people or saying helpful things at times like these.

Travis sighs, tucking his wings in and leaning back. “I can’t fly,” he admits in a near-whisper, a secret torn out of his soul. “I never could, as long as I can remember.”

It’s shameful. People were born to fly, that’s why they have wings, but he can’t. He’s never been able to figure it out. Something is broken inside of him and he doesn’t know why.

Wes looks at his hands, wings fluttering uncertainly against his back, and he says, “I can’t fly either.”

Travis rolls his eyes, because _of course_ Wes can’t fly, his wings are little more than fledgling size, they wouldn’t support the weight of a child, let alone a full-grown man.

All the sarcastic words die in his throat when Wes says softly, “Even if I had my old wings, I don’t think I could fly again.”

Travis drops his head back and laughs wearily. “We’re so screwed up.”

Wes chuckles. “God, we are.”

Travis doesn’t reach out. He doesn’t sling his arm over Wes’s shoulder or clap him on the arm. But one of his wings stretches, just a little.

Wes’s wing spreads and brushes against Travis’s, and it feels like the first real connection they’ve have in a long time.

\---

Not long after, Travis wakes up to find that all his colors have darkened by two or three shades. It’s darker than he likes and he doesn’t understand why his feathers grew in like that. 

Then he gets to work and the light hits Wes’s wings just right and Travis sees it. Wes’s feathers are black, for the most part, but they have a rainbow sheen at the right angle, and the shades are navy blues and deep forest greens and bloody crimsons and the colors pattern to Travis’s exactly.

That’s when the marriage jokes start.

\---

The first time Alex sees them standing side by side, her eyes go sad and Travis instantly wants to apologize. She waves him off, says it’s not his fault.

“You’re still what he needs,” is all she says, and she pats his arm and gives him a weary smile.

\---

(Later, even though he knows they were having problems long before he arrived, he can’t help but wonder if it was his fault they stopped being so perfect together.)

\---

“Dude,” Paekman grins when he sees them. He holds out his hands. “ _Dude_.”

“It’s not funny,” Travis grumbles, hunching his wings against his back.

“It’s a little funny,” Wes says without looking up from the menu.

“It’s hilarious,” Paekman corrects them both. “I mean, I knew you guys were close, but this? Matching wings? It’s _adorable_.” He looks like he’s about three seconds away from full-on belly laughter.

Travis slumps in his seat. “It’s not _that_ funny.”

“Aww, I think it’s sweet.” Paekman grins, his own wings trembling with repressed laughter. “You two going all couples’ matchy-match. I mean, of all the women in the world you could choose from, Travis, you chose Wes. That’s commitment right there.”

Travis bristles. “Hey, Wes is the one who changed his colors to match mine.”

Wes kicks Travis under the table. Paekman just laughs. “Really, my friend? And were your colors always so dark?”

With a groan, Travis drops his head in his hands. “I hate you. I hate you both.”

And Paekman just snorts and sing-songs, “That’s not what your wings say…”

\---

David Paek is the calmest guy Wes and Travis know. Nothing seems to ruffle him. Even in the midst of their worst bickering, Paekman just laughs and tells them to cool it. He’s also one of the best friends Travis has ever had, which is saying something, all things considered. Travis has friends and girlfriends (and Wes, Wes is a different story entirely), but he’s never really had a _best friend_ before.

They don’t see much of him once he transfers into SIS, but it only takes one lunch to realize something is wrong. There are lines of color in his feathers, fine lines of a sickly sort of greenish-grey spider-webbing through the honey-gold of his wings.

The two of them aren’t so caught up in their own problems that they’re completely oblivious to their friend’s problems too. Something is bothering Paekman. They both try asking Paekman what’s wrong separately; when that doesn’t work, they corner him and ask him together.

Paekman just laughs it off. “It’s nothing to worry about, guys. I promise, if I need help, you’ll be the first I go to.”

They don’t believe him, of course. But there’s not much they can do.

\---

Travis likes Alex. He does. But he knows she and Wes are having problems. He’s been there through the years as they try to work things out and never quite connect again. It’s all in the wings. Alex’s crimson streaks get more confident and pervasive and Wes’s wings just seem to get darker in comparison.

It’s obvious they’re drifting farther apart with every passing day, but Travis doesn’t realize _how_ bad it’s gotten until Wes stands up one day and a feather flutters to his feet.

“Dude, you’re moulting,” Travis teases, picking up the feather and twirling it.

It’s supposed to be funny, but Wes tightens his shoulders and his wings curl up into his spine and Travis hasn’t seen that since the beginning, it’s been _years_ and he thought Wes was past all that. He sits up.

“Wes, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing, Travis.” Wes gathers up his papers and doesn’t look at his partner. “Nothing’s wrong.”

\---

The worst thing about it is that Paekman and Wes are both incredibly stubborn in different ways. Paekman will weather the storm, not saying anything in case he can figure it out on his own. Wes just bottles it up and shoves it away and lets it eat at him.

But Paekman’s wings are turning more and more sickly-green every time Travis sees him, and they’re at least a handspan shorter than before. And Wes is losing all the color he’s gained over the years and feathers litter the floor of his car like ashes.

And Travis can’t do a damn thing about it, because neither of them will _talk_ to him.

\---

He starts getting patches. White from stress and purple-grey from worry and they’re huge ugly blotches he can’t do anything about because his friend and his partner _won’t talk to him_.

All he can do, really, is wait for things to fall apart so he can start picking up the pieces.

\---

When things fall apart, it happens spectacularly, all at once.

\---

Wes and Alex get divorced. Travis can’t say he didn’t see it coming, because he did.

Things seem to settle, though, for the most part. Wes stops losing feathers. His wings are the same lifeless boring shade of grey they were in the beginning, except for one small line of black, right where those first feathers appeared after the Caller, and Travis is pleased to see it. It’s a start, it’s something to build off of, and he’s determined to get them back to where they were. He implements this plan the best he can, by keeping things as normal as possible between them. 

And then Paekman happens.

Crowl happens.

The gun happens.

Just like that, nothing is the same.

\---

The blues and greens are gone. Travis wakes up to find his wings are furious shades of fiery reds and violent oranges and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out the symbolism there.

All the colors are different and there’s nothing on his wings that match Wes anymore—not that they’ve matched since the divorce, because Wes went and drained all the colors out of his feathers but _still_. Still. They used to match and now they don’t, not even a little, which is probably supposed to mean his trust in Wes is broken or something stupid like that. His trust in Wes hasn’t faltered. It’s just this whole situation that’s fucked up.

He believes that. Whether Wes does is anybody’s guess.

Whether anyone else does will determine if they stay partners.

\---

Wes comes back from his suspension, and Travis just stares.

“ _Wes_.” He can’t quite keep the horror out of his voice. 

Wes shifts his shoulders and says, “Leave it alone, Travis.”

Travis can’t leave it alone. He stares at Wes’s naked back, at the smooth expanse of grey jacket, and he feels sick. It’s like seeing a friend who had an unexpected amputation over the weekend. Wes’s wings are just _gone_.

“They’re not gone, idiot,” Wes snarks grumpily, reading Travis’s mind the way he does. “I just covered them.”

Travis is relieved. For about a second. Then he feels sick again. “They’re small enough to hide beneath your jacket?” They weren’t that small before he was suspended. “That’s a problem, Wes. You let your wings keep getting smaller and they’ll fall right off.”

Wes’s fingers tighten on a pen. “It’s not funny, Travis.”

“No, it’s not.” Travis doesn’t think it’s funny in the slightest. He knows people who have lost their wings, and that’s the last thing he wants for Wes. They’ve had their problems, but it’s not thing he’d _ever_ wish on his partner, no matter how much bad blood lies between them.

“You know, there are people who can help with you shrinkage problem.” He says it lightly but he means it sincerely.

Wes shoots him a dirty look. “I don’t need therapy, Travis. I’m fine.”

“Dude, you need more therapy than I can say. You’ve got issues with a capital ‘i’.”

That earns Travis a dark glower and Wes doesn’t talk to him for an hour.

\---

It’s almost ironic, what the captain sets as their punishment.

\---

At first glance, Wes doesn’t seem like the sort of lose his wings. That happens to people who fall into despair, who get so caught up in the past they lose track of the future. Travis knows people like that, who woke up one day with naked backs—and they didn’t care. There’s a direct correlation between losing hope and losing your wings.

The thing is, Wes gets fixated. When something goes wrong, he gets stuck, and he goes over the _what-ifs_ until he’s worn himself out. Look at Anthony Padua. Look at the divorce, the thing with the gun.

Wings don’t grow back when they’re gone, and Travis has seen too many wingless in his life. He doesn’t want Wes to be like that.

No matter what Wes says, Travis has a right to be worried.

\---

Dr. Ryan’s wings are a bland, unassuming beige color, dusted lightly with a pale rose. It’s the sort of shade that goes with everything and reveals nothing. Travis wonders if that’s deliberate, to set her patients at ease, or if Dr. Ryan is just that gently calm all the time.

Mr. Dumont is dark brown and emerald green, like a duck. His wife is all periwinkle blue and spring meadow chartreuse. The colors are different, but the patterning is the same.

Clyde and Rozelle are similar sorts of muddy tree trunk brown. Rozelle’s feathers are streaked with fiery reds and oranges; jagged lines of electric blue slash across Clyde’s wings. Clashing personalities, but harmonious underneath it all.

Peter and Dakota are the _exact_ same shade of robin’s egg blue. It takes less than twenty minutes for Travis to wonder why those two are even in therapy in the first place.

Everyone has patches of white and streaks of discordant dark grey, which is probably why they’re here, but it’s easy enough to see how close they were before whatever problems got between them.

And then there’s Wes, who doesn’t even have his wings out, and there’s Travis, whose red/yellow/orange patterning scream _angry attention seeker_.

They’re not even a real couple, but Travis feels at a distinct disadvantage.

\---

_I’m only here to help_ , Dr. Ryan says. 

\---

“Therapy will do you good,” Captain Sutton says “It’s done wonders for me.”

Sutton’s wings used to be bright firecracker red laced with gold, like the wings of a feathered dragon. It matched his temper, which would get unleashed on anyone who dared cross him. Or anything. (Travis still remembers that incident with the printer.)

Now, thanks to Dr. Ryan, the captain’s wings are sandy tan and cool blue like a tropical beach, with only a few sunset-red splashes to show he’s still got enough of his temper to count.

Wes and Travis share a look and mirror uncertain smiles.

“Can’t wait, cap.”

\---

_Empathize with your partner_ , Dr. Ryan says.

\---

Wes is over at Alex’s dealing with letting go or something else to deal with the online dating thing. Travis is sitting in Kendall’s apartment playing _Apocalypse Moon_ because there are certain things he’s not allowed to do and stabbing people is one of them. 

“This guy talked through Wes like he wasn’t even there, and Wes just stood there and took it!” Travis jabs the keyboard; his avatar slashes angrily at a dreadwolf.

Kendall sighs from the couch. “You know the stereotypes about the wingless, Travis. We know better, but people see Wes and they make assumptions.”

“He shouldn’t have to put up with it!” The dreadwolf dies a messy pixelated death. He still wants to stab something, but there are no more wolves.

Kendall shrugs in a rustle of feathers. “Wes doesn’t seem to mind. Maybe he likes people underestimating him.”

Travis looks at Kendall, with her soft baby blue wings. He can’t see the pattern on the underside from here, but he knows what it looks like—burnished silver lines like bird bones. Gentle, but with a core of steel underneath.

If there’s anyone who knows about letting people underestimate them, it’s her.

“That sounds like something he’d do,” Travis grumps, because it does. Wes is annoying like that.

“Then let him.” Kendall shrugs again. “And next time, instead of punching the guy in the face, let Wes arrest him. Show those bigoted bastards that even a ‘wingless’ nobody can still put their ass in jail.”

Travis laughs, some of the anger draining away. “I do like the way you think.”

\---

_Talk to one another_ , Dr. Ryan says.

\---

The first person to insult Wes’s naked back to his face is Morgan (arrogant green wings like old money). Phil (confident blue with annoyed orange at the shaft) stands by and doesn’t say a word. Travis crushes his coffee cup in his hand in an effort not to punch them both in the face. Wes is the one who grabs him and drags him to the bathroom, because Travis is too busy glaring at Morgan to worry about the scalding liquid on his hand. 

“That was stupid and you’re an idiot,” Wes scolds, shoving Travis’s hand under ice cold water.

Travis yelps and jerks his hand away. “No, what was stupid was insulting me to my face.”

“I think he was insulting me, actually,” Wes says dryly. He sounds way too calm about this.

“You’re way to calm about this,” Travis accuses, glaring at Wes in the mirror. “Didn’t you hear what he _said?_ ”

_Drop your partner_ , Morgan had sneered, all arrogance and superiority and derision. _Useless dead weight like him will only drag you down when you fly._

“Of course I heard what he said.” Wes rolls his eyes, leaning against the neighboring sink. “I was right there.”

“I know!” Travis turns the taps and waits for the water to heat up. “The nerve, to say that _while you were there!_ Didn’t even have the decency to insult us behind your back!”

“Oh, so we’re an ‘us’ now?”

“Of course we’re an ‘us’. We’re more of an ‘us’ than they’ll ever be.”

“That doesn’t even make sense.”

“Shut up. I’m making a point. We’re partners,” Travis snaps, which is enough of an answer. “Why’s he ragging on you anyway? I’m the one who dumped Phil. He should hate me a lot more.”

“Yeah, but I’m ‘the other woman’.” Wes shrugs. “Plus, I’m wingless.”

“You’re not wingless,” Travis scrubs furiously at his hands and imagines squishing Morgan’s big fat face. “You have awesome wings.”

“I don’t have awesome wings. I have sad little feather dusters that are as black and empty as a fledgling because I have no personality.”

“ _What?_ ” Travis bristles. “Who said that?!”

Wes looks way too amused. “ _You_ said that, like two years ago.”

“Well…that’s…two years is a long time.”

“Right…”

“Besides, I’m allowed to say that sort of thing. You’re _my_ partner. I mean it with all the affection in the world.”

“Sure you do.” Wes still sounds mildly amused and not nearly upset enough.

“Why aren’t you pissed?”

Wes rolls his eyes. “Because I’m a grown-up and I don’t get upset when other people are mean to me. I’m not so self-conscious that a few insults will shatter my ego.”

“Are you sure?” Travis eyes the blonde suspiciously. “It’s not because your wings fell right off and you’re trying to keep it from me?” He sticks his hands out, presses them against Wes’s back.

“Ugh! Travis, your hands are wet!” Wes twists away but not before Travis feels the covered lumps of Wes’s wings. Something in Travis’s chest loosens.

“Look,” Wes says, once he’s scowled at Travis and not-so-playfully punches his shoulder. “If it really bothers you that much, you know what we can do.”

Travis shuts off the water with a grin. “We find the truck?”

Wes’s smile is positively _devious_. “We find the truck.”

\---

_Be there when they need you_ , Dr. Ryan says.

\---

Jason comes back from Afghanistan scarred and wingless. It doesn’t make Travis care any less, of course, Jason is still is brother. 

Jason used to have wonderful wings, forest and olive and hunter greens in a speckled camouflage pattern. Now they’re gone, though, and it’s changed him.

Travis hopes it hasn’t changed Jason _that_ much, that his suspicions are wrong, because the foster brother he remembered would never go around robbing homes. And he keeps hoping until the moment he finds the lighter.

After it’s all said and done, days later, Travis tries to go see his foster brother in jail. Jason refuses to see him. Travis ends up wallowing in the back of a grungy bar, on his way to getting properly wasted.

He’s not surprised when Wes slides next to him in the booth. Annoyed, maybe, but not surprised.

“This wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t lost his wings,” Travis accuses, glaring at his drink.

“You think?” Wes asks quietly.

“Of course!” Travis taps his glass furiously against the table. “You of all people know how bad the wingless have it, and wingless vets have got it worse. He was pushed to this.”

“Really.” Wes’s tone is curiously flat.

Travis puffs up, wings bristling at the implied criticism of his foster brother. “What’s _that_ supposed to mean?”

Wes gives him a look. “People’s personalities don’t change that much just because they lost their wings, Travis,” he says in a distinct _You’re not thinking this through, Travis_ tone. “They’ve just lost any reason to care.”

“But if he hadn’t—”

“Imagine a wingless world,” Wes interrupts.

Travis scoffs into his glass. “Pretty damn depressing world.”

“Travis.” Wes is using his _I’m trying to help so stop being difficult_ voice. Travis makes half an effort. “Not a world where everybody’s lost their wings. A world where nobody has wings in the first place. In that world, if your brother still had the same personality, same experiences…would he have ended up in this same place?”

Travis wants to say no. Wants to say that never in a million years would Jason do that if he’d never had wings to lose.

But he remembers the coldness in Jason’s eye today, and he remembers Jason’s ruthless edge when they were kids.

And he can’t deny the possibility.

Wes takes his silence as the confirmation it is. He sighs, but there’s sympathy in the sound. “Having wings doesn’t change you, Travis. It just makes it harder to hide yourself.”

“Is that what you’re doing?” Travis mumbles before he can think about it. “Hiding?”

Wes stiffens; Travis immediately regrets it. This is something they don’t talk about, _why_ Wes covered up his wings after he pulled his gun.

People at work have asked, but Travis hasn’t. He has his theories, of course he does, but he’s been waiting for Wes to tell him (with the full knowledge that he might be waiting forever).

“Sorry,” he mutters. His wings curl around him, half-wrapping him in a shield against his own stupidity. He stares through his whiskey at the bottom of his glass.

On the other side of the feathery barrier, Wes sighs. “Not yet, Travis. I will, okay? Just…not yet.”

“Yeah.”

Wes goes quiet. Travis goes back to getting painfully drunk. When Wes gets up, Travis doesn’t hesitate to signal for another. But Wes doesn’t leave. He just moves to the other side of the table so he can see Travis.

“Tell me about Jason,” he orders gently.

So Travis talks. Not about this Jason, the war-torn soldier who came home a stranger, but about the reckless young man he grew up with.

Much as he mocks the therapy process, he can’t deny that talking helps.

\---

_You are together for a reason_ , Dr. Ryan says.

\---

Jonelle’s wings are the color of bleached bone, left to dry in the sun for weeks on end, and each feather is edged in the red of fresh blood. They’re perfectly morbid to match her career choice. They’re also fucking creepy and intimidating as hell and Travis really isn’t sure what he was thinking all those months ago. (He’s pretty sure the reason he never called is because he wanted to pretend that night _never happened_ because Jonelle kind of scares him a little.)

Basically, that means that whenever she flares her wings, Travis tends to stop and pay attention because she knows her way around a scalpel and she has an extensive knowledge of poisoning (something she demonstrates every time she and Wes get together) and how to dispose of a body (which she also likes to point out with Wes during their little diatribes).

So when she says, _You need each other_ , and flares her wings like that, Travis listens.

She’s right. It’s annoying to admit it but she’s right. He’ll never admit it out loud, because seriously? but she’s absolutely right. If Wes wasn’t there to keep him from killing himself, there’s no way Travis could get away with the things he does. And Travis remembers how Wes was at the beginning of their partnership and compares it to the way he is now and it’s so much _better_ , like if Dr. Ryan knew she wouldn’t be complaining about Wes’s progress in therapy because Wes is leaps and bounds ahead of where he was and Travis like to think that’s his good influence.

But no matter how much he agrees with Jonelle’s assessment of things, Travis doesn’t intend to _admit_ it because that’s really sappy and they’re totally not like that.

Except then they’re sitting in therapy and it runs through his head again and he looks at his partner and they’re both denying they got anything out of the exersize but that’s really not true at all and—

He says it. He tells the group what Jonelle said, and he admits that he needs Wes to keep him from going off the rails.

And then Wes, reluctantly, admits that Travis pulls him out of his head, and there’s a spark. Like for the first time in a long time, a connection has been made between them. If they weren’t in group therapy Travis would totally brush Wes with his wing and maybe bump shoulders or something. 

They’re not even close to where they used to be, but it feels like they just took a step in the right direction.

Of course, then Dr. Ryan has to go and talk about breakthroughs and whatever, and the moment is ruined completely, but the thought lingers in Travis’s head long after the session is over.

\---

_Be proud of each other, and yourselves, for sticking it through_ , Dr. Ryan says.

\---

“You did good, kid,” Dan Noone says, brushing one faded red-and-green wing against Travis’s, like an affectionate slap on the arm. “You and that partner of yours.”

Travis can’t help but grin a little. He glances across the hanger where Wes is standing, alone in a sea of feathers. “Thanks.”

Dan follows his gaze. “You two are good together. Make a good team.”

Travis looks at his mentor, the cowboy cop who spent most of his years alone or shuffling through partners. For a long time, Travis thought he would end up just like his mentor, alone and still going until he couldn’t go anymore.

Then he looks back at Wes, with his hands on his hips and a scowl on his face, and he can’t deny it. They do make a good team. They always have. Travis knows there’s no one he’d be as good with as he is with Wes.

He grins. “We are, aren’t we?”

They’re the best, and despite their problems there’s no one Travis would rather be with.

\---

_Open up_ , Dr. Ryan says.

Easier said than done, but every so often they do what she asks.

It certainly doesn’t hurt. On a good day, they may even admit it helps.

\---

“If you take us back, we’ll answer the question we’ve been dodging the entire time we’ve been here.” 

“We’ll tell you why I pulled my gun on Travis.”

\---

They tell her about Paekman, about Crowl. About that day with the gun.

They tell her everything.

\---

“You never even thanked me! For saving you from making the biggest mistake of your life!”

“I wasn’t—”

Travis looks at his partner, standing there exposed and fragile and broken, naked in a way that has nothing to do with his bare back. He hunches down, wings wrapping around him, reds and oranges a painful reminder of the anger and frustration and rash recklessness churning inside of him. The protest dies in his throat.

“You’re right.” Wes looks stunned at the quiet admission, shoulders dropping in shock. Travis peers over the defensive wrap of his wings to meet his partner’s eyes straight on.

“You’re right. I wasn’t in a good place back then. So thank you.”

It’s like a weight drops from Wes’s shoulders, all the burden he’s been holding in for six months relieved by those three words.

(Sometimes, times like this, Travis wishes they weren’t so stubborn. They always just keep _missing_ each other).

Travis pulls his wings back, forcing himself to stop hiding, tucking them neatly against his back. “But it’s different now. _We’re_ different now. We’re better than we were.”

He takes a breath. “I’m not gonna shoot him.”

There’s a heartbeat, a moment, where Wes just stares at him and doesn’t say anything.

“Wes,” Dr. Ryan says, gently, like she can feel this moment too, this make-or-break tension in the air. “Do you believe that Travis has changed? Can you take his word for it?”

Wes clenches his jaw and his shoulders shift. Travis wishes more than ever he could see Wes’s wings, because Wes’s face is giving him nothing.

Travis holds his breath.

Finally, Wes nods, a tiny, miniscule thing, and the tension in Travis’s body disappears. His shoulders droop and his wings sag and it’s like something tight and coiled that he never knew existed just loosens. Doesn’t vanish completely, but slackens until he can breathe again.

Wes meets his eye, gives him a tiny little nod. And they’re not perfect, not by a long shot, but this moment is a tipping point. For all everything else they’ve got to work through, Wes believes that Travis has changed about this. Wes believes him.

Wes believes _in_ him.

It feels like, no matter what else comes their way, they’re going to be okay.

\---

“I’ve only got one thing left to say and it really isn’t very therapeutic.”

“Go kick their ass.”

\---

They do.

\---

Change isn’t instantaneous, and things don’t get better in a day. It’s a lot easier to tear things down than it is the build them up.

But Paekman has been avenged, Crowl is behind bars, and it’s finally in the past where it all belongs. They can both move on.

Some of his color comes back, the blues and greens he lost after Paekman. He’s still got too many reds and oranges, because it’s hard to let go of the anger, he’s been holding onto it so long, but at the same time it feels good to let go.

There is something new—a stripe of purple on his underwing coverts. It’s a darker color than he’s ever had, darker even than that time he inadvertently tried to match Wes’s dark coloring.

Purple is uncertainty, anxiety, worry, _fear_. After Paekman, Travis doesn’t know what there is to be afraid of.

Some things don’t change. Wes still covers his wings. Travis still has meaningless relationships with women he hardly knows.

But some things do. They talk a little easier now. They participate in therapy a little more (hard to get out of assignments when they volunteered to be there, after all).

Change doesn’t come easily. But they’re getting there.

\---

Six and a half months after they rejoin therapy, Wes falls. They chase their suspect all the way to the roof, and in the ensuing struggle Wes gets too close to the edge, and the suspect shoves him over.

Travis doesn’t hesitate. There’s no thought for the suspect, no concern for their case, just the single, desperate thought: _Wes is falling_. He flaps his wings, launches himself across the roof and over the edge without anything but _Wes Wes Wes_ going through his mind.

It’s only been a few seconds but that’s enough for Wes to have already fallen a story. Travis plunges, wings giving him enough extra speed to send him forward those last few feet. Wes’s eyes widen when he sees Travis but his arms reach out for his partner, and Travis opens his arms wide. They collide, spinning in mid-air, Wes clinging fiercely to his neck, and Travis spreads his wings to steady them and—

—and Travis _flies_.

For the first time in his life, Travis knows what to do in the air. He’s not flailing or flapping his wings in abandon. He just _knows_.

His wings curve like scoops, catching the air, steadying the spin and slowing their descent. They’re still falling fast, faster than he can hope to counter, but he knows how to counter it, how to bring them in for a gentle landing. Like the knowledge has always been there but he’s never been able to access it before.

Wes starts a little when Travis banks around the corner of the building. He stays like that, descending in a tight spiral above the street, holding tight to Wes and not letting go.

For the first time in his life, Travis isn’t afraid of falling. He knows he won’t fall. He can’t. He’s got Wes’s life in his hands, and that’s enough to keep him in the air.

It only takes a few moments to reach the ground. The landing is as gentle as Travis expected; a few pieces of litter scatter under his wings, but it’s nothing more than a light step onto pavement. 

For a minute, neither of them move, wrapped around each other and inches apart. Wes is shaking. Or maybe Travis is. Maybe it’s both of them.

“Holy shit,” Travis breathes, eyes wide.

Wes swallows. This close, Travis can see the fear in his partner’s eyes. He’s not sure who it’s for. Wes was just tossed off a building, and he can’t fly.

But then, up until a few minutes ago, neither could Travis.

“Holy _shit_ ,” Travis repeats, a grin slowly forming on his face. “I just…did you _see_ that?”

“Travis.” Wes fights to regain his breath, pulling away from Travis’s arms. “Travis, we still have to catch our guy.”

And then Wes is gone, running for the building to catch their guy before he can get away.

Travis will be right behind him, in just a second.

But for this moment, he closes his eyes and turns his face towards the sky.

_He flew_.

\---

Thirty seconds. It was, at best, no more than thirty seconds in the air.

It’s everything he’s ever dreamed of. 

It’s _freedom_.

\---

“So I flew today.”

There are murmurs of awe and congratulations from around the room. Travis leans smugly back in his chair.

Wes rolls his eyes. “It was really more of a controlled descent.”

“Wes is just upset because I saved his life. When I flew. Because I flew today.”

“I’m not _upset_ , Travis. I just don’t think you should make a big deal out of nothing.”

“What’s ‘nothing’, Wes?” Dr. Ryan asks, cutting in as Travis puffs up because yelling tends to follow. “The flight, or saving your life?”

Wes glares at her with eyes like a hawk. “It was nothing. I was fine. I had it under control.”

“It was a ten-story drop and you were in freefall, Wes, you did _not_ have it under control.”

“You threw yourself off a roof when you didn’t even know you could fly! You could have killed yourself, Travis!”

“Well, you _would_ have splatted like a ripe tomato if I hadn’t been there! Unless you think your wings would have saved you? Do you _really_ have that much _faith_ in yourself, Wes?”

It’s the wrong thing to say, and Travis knows it as soon as the words leave his mouth. Wes’s face smoothes out into statuesque blankness.

“Oh,” Clyde drawls, pressing a fist against his mouth, “You did _not_.”

“Travis Marks,” Mrs. Dumont admonishes, sounding like every foster mom he’s ever had.

Even Dr. Ryan looks disappointed and disapproving, any amusement for their normal bickering antics wiped away.

“Dammit.” Travis rubs his hands over his face, wings shifting, only he doesn’t know if he wants to cover himself up or wrap them around Wes. “Dammit, Wes, I didn’t _mean_ it like that, you _know_ that.”

Wes’s smile is cold and thin and the sharpest thing in the room. “I think you meant _exactly_ what you said, Travis.”

Travis’s wings bristle and mantle, the beginning of an argument on his tongue, but before he can say a word Dr. Ryan holds up a hand and cuts him off with a sharp, “Travis!”

The only reason Travis goes quiet is because he knows he crossed a line. He’s in the wrong here, even if he doesn’t want to admit it.

“Travis,” Dr. Ryan says, and her tone is softer but by no means _gentle_. “Why did you say that?”

Travis scowls and resists the urge to hunch defensively. “He always does this! Every time I do something right, he finds a way to belittle it or act like it didn’t happen.” He turns to his partner, beseeching. “Why can’t you just be happy for me, for once?”

Wes sits stiffly in his chair and doesn’t look at him.

Dr. Ryan holds up her hand again before Travis can start yelling, which is really where this is headed and everyone in the room knows it. “Wes,” she asks in that same soft-but-not-gentle tone. “Why did you say what you did about Travis’s flight today?”

A vein in Wes’s jaw jumps and he doesn’t say a word.

“I can think of several reasons,” she says. Her wings lie flat and still on her back, and Travis has no idea what she’s thinking. He’s always hated psychologists for that reason. Too much control over their wings; he could never see what was going on in their heads even as they tried to pry into his own. He likes Dr. Ryan a lot more than he’s ever liked anyone else, but at the same time, she’s still a shrink, and it’s her _job_ to get in their heads.

“Perhaps you’re embarrassed about needing to be saved,” Dr. Ryan says. “We all know how independent you both are.”

Plausible, but Travis can tell this is just the warm-up leading into something else.

“Or perhaps you simply don’t want to say ‘thank you’.”

Even more likely. ‘Thank you’ and ‘I’m sorry’ are words that rarely leave either of their lips. They’re both stubborn that way.

Wes still doesn’t say anything, staring at a spot three feet beyond her head.

Dr. Ryan leans back and taps her lips like she’s deep in thought. Everyone in the room is watching her, waiting in tense silence like this is the cliffhanger to their favorite TV show.

Travis watches Wes.

“Or perhaps…” Dr. Ryan says slowly, letting the words linger on her tongue, “perhaps you were simply…jealous.”

Travis is the only one other than Dr. Ryan watching Wes, so he’s the only one who sees Wes’s shoulders tighten, see his eyes go bleak. By the time the other couples have swiveled their heads around, Wes is as cool as granite and marble.

“Jealous of Travis? That would be a sad day indeed.” Wes tries to joke, but the words fall flat. Dr. Ryan has hit a nerve. The blonde rises to his feet, spine stiff as a board and Travis knows what it would look like, Wes’s wings pressed flat against his back like he’s trying to disappear. “Thank you for your insight, illuminating as always,” Wes snarls sarcastically, turning on his heel. Twenty minutes before the session is to end, he walks out.

Wes has _never_ walked out of therapy. Not without a call, not without Travis at his side.

Travis can only stare after him.

“Travis?” Dr. Ryan calls, drawing his attention. “You two should talk.”

He blinks at her.

“Why would he be jealous of _me_?”

She gives him a placid smile. “Well, that’s why you should talk.” She nods her head, giving permission. “Go on. After him.”

Confused and not liking it, Travis gets up to find his partner.

\---

He finds Wes in the car. It not like there’s many places the blonde could have gone, but he could have driven off and gone home. Since they came together, Travis is glad Wes didn’t.

The smooth strains of jazz veritably blare out of the car as Travis opens the door, but Wes doesn’t look relaxed at all. There are little lines around Wes’s closed eyes and his fingers are tapping rhythmically on the steering wheel and he’s obviously forcing himself to take deep breaths and he’s probably counting to ten or something.

Travis waits a full minute. Wes doesn’t make a move to acknowledge him. It’s such a _Wes_ thing to do, pretend the problem doesn’t exist until it goes away, and it’s always annoying as hell. This time, though, Travis supposes Wes has the right.

He turns the music down.

The tapping fingers stop. “I was listening to that,” Wes growls without opening his eyes. 

“If by ‘listening’ you mean ‘trying to blast your eardrums out’, then yes, you were.”

Wes flips him the bird. That’s encouraging. If Wes can do petty juvenile gestures than they’re better off than Travis thought.

Travis takes a breath. “I’m sorry.” He’s capable of apologizing. For certain things.

“You shouldn’t have said it in the first place,” Wes snarls.

Travis winces. Definitely angry. “I know. I’m sorry.”

Wes opens his eyes, looks at him, and oh, no, that’s _not_ anger. That’s hurt and disappointment and betrayal masquerading as anger, because that’s what they do, they get mad when they’re in pain.

Travis can handle Wes’s anger. This is much worse.

“Why’d you say it?” There’s a resigned sort of anguish to the words, like Wes expects whatever Travis will say next is only going to hurt him more. Travis hates that they’re still at this point, that they haven’t moved past this.

With a sigh, Travis leans back, wings curling up around his head. He tries not to seem defensive, but he is, a little. “I _flew_ , Wes. I flew, and then you go and act like it was nothing. I’ve always…” His throat tightens. He doesn’t say it, how he’s always looked at the sky and longed to be up there, how he’s never been in the air even once and that’s all he wants, more than anything. And today, today he made it into the air and he stayed there and it was _glorious_ , thirty seconds of everything he’s ever wanted and it leaves him aching to do it again.

“Why couldn’t you just be happy for me?”

Wes’s hands tighten on the steering wheel. “You flew, Travis.”

Travis glances over. “…yes, we’ve established that.”

Wes closes his eyes, face pinched with something Travis can’t name. “You _flew_ , Travis. If you can fly, you can do anything, and you don’t need…” He cuts himself off, takes a breath.

“Don’t need what?” Travis prompts.

In a voice that’s nothing but bleakness, Wes says, “You don’t need a partner who’ll drag you down when you fly.”

“That’s…” Travis gapes. “ _That’s_ what you’ve been thinking? That stupid thing Morgan said all those months ago?”

The blonde’s shoulders hunch. Answer enough.

Right now, Travis wants to wrap Wes in his wings and give Wes’s stupid self a big hug. Since that’s not possible due to the confines of the car (and also due to the confines of their relationship because yeah, that’s just not them), Travis settles for stretching one wing and brushing Wes’s arm. “Do you honestly think,” he asks in his _My god you’re such a dumbass_ tone that has Wes stiffening in annoyance, “that after everything we’ve been through, I’d drop you just because you can’t fly?”

Wes swallows hard. “I suppose not,” he says, and his voice is tiny and he’s blinking too rapidly, but Travis pretends not to notice.

“It’s not like anyone else would put up with you for long,” Wes adds, trying to regain their regular balance.

It works. Travis laughs and replies, “Like anyone could stand your OCD ass,” and things settle back into normalcy.

Well, normal for them, at least.

\---

They talk about everything _but_ flying on the drive home, but it’s all that’s on Travis’s mind. Flying, and doing it again as soon as possible.

He hardly waits for Wes to pull away before he’s bounding up the stairs in his apartment building, up and up all the way to the roof. He practically sprints through the door, spreads his wings wide in the air and he wills himself into the sky.

Nothing happens. His wings flail like a newborn chick’s and he trips over his own feet and _he doesn’t fly_.

He tries again. He thinks about this morning, gliding and spiraling down to the street. He thinks about the way his wings responded to him, and how for the first time in his life he knew what to do in the air.

He thinks about this morning, and he spreads his wings.

He still doesn’t fly.

“Come on, what’s wrong with you?” Travis glares at his wings. “Shape up. We did this before, we can do it again.”

Still nothing.

“Maybe I’m just not high enough,” he decides. Who cares if other people can launch into flight from a standstill, this is only Travis’s second time flying, he can’t be expected to do it all at once. If he can get higher, he’s sure it’ll give him the boost he needs.

He climbs the enclosed stairwell. It’s not even a story, barely more than eight feet, but it should be enough.

Travis stands on the tiny roof, spreads his wings. He closes his eyes and thinks about this morning. Of soaring like he’s always dreamed, the way people were meant to.

He dreams of being free.

_I can do this_. Toes hanging over the edge, wings open wide. _I can do this_.

He leaps.

\---

Back when they were still good with one another, when they _talked_ to one another, they would routinely meet up. Drinking or watching movies or just hanging out. And sometimes if they got drunk enough, the discussions would turn a little bit deeper than either of them would admit.

There was one night…

“What’s flying like?” Travis asked, because he was drunk and feeling masochistic.

Wes’s face went soft and a quiet smiled tugged at his lips. “It’s the best thing in the world.”

“Better than sex?”

“Better than sex.”

Travis scoffed around his bottle. “I find that hard to believe.”

“That’s because you’ve never been flying.” It wasn’t said maliciously, not the way Wes would say it if they were talking today. It was just a statement of fact, which was the only reason Travis didn’t hit Wes for saying it.

He took a long pull from his beer. “So tell me.”

His partner’s eyes were a little dreamy. “It’s amazing. There’s nothing but you and the sky, with the world stretched out beneath you. You can stay up there for hours if you want to, just escaping from whatever’s bothering you. It’s release. It’s…it’s freedom. Complete freedom.”

“I like freedom,” Travis grumbled, only a little bitter but mostly resigned. “I like freedom a lot, but I still can’t fly.”

“It’s not as simple as that.” Wes’s face fell; he stared at the bottle in his hands but he was gazing inward. “You can’t just want to fly, you have to believe in yourself. Absolute, unequivocal faith, that you’re strong enough, that your wings will support you, that you won’t fall out of the sky. Some people…some people just don’t have that.”

“Huh.” Travis thought on that, decided he was way too drunk to be having a serious discussion on all the ways he was fucked up, and summarized, “So basically you’re saying I’m screwed up, you’re screwed up, and we need to look at getting better gas mileage.”

Wes chuckled, and the mood lightened considerably. “Something like that. But hey, at least we’re screwed up together.”

“I’ll drink to that.”

\---

Travis remembers that conversation.

He remembers that conversation, and he falls.

\---

The sound he makes is bitter and frustrated and hardly qualifies as a laugh. He leans against the stairwell and lets his head thump dully against the concrete.

“Hey Wes,” he tells the empty rooftop. “Looks like you don’t have anything to worry about after all.”

All these years and he gets one brief, wonderful moment in the sky. Just one.

He still can’t fly.

\---

He dreams of soaring and wakes with tears in his eyes.

\---

Travis doesn’t say anything, but it must show on his face because Wes gives him the stinkeye and says, “What’s wrong with you?”

_Apparently everything_ , he doesn’t say. He slaps on a smile and says, “Nothing, man. We get a case already?”

Wes hands over the file and thankfully doesn’t push.

\---

“What’s with you? You’ve been twitchy all day.”

“I’m fine,” Wes says. Then he rolls his shoulders and shifts in his seat.

“See? There! Right there! All day, and it’s driving me nuts!”

“It’s nothing, Travis.” Wes proceeds to lean against the back of his chair and wriggle, like he’s trying to scratch an itch without actually scratching it.

“And now I know it’s something. You always say it’s nothing when it’s something.”

Wes pauses, frowns. “I do not. “

“Do too.”

“Do not.”

“Do _too_. What’s wrong?” Travis interrupts the flow of the argument, because occasionally he can be a responsible adult without devolving into a five-year-old.

Wes scowls. When he fidgets uncomfortably again, Travis figures it’s probably not aimed at him. “I think you broke some of my feathers,” Wes snaps, which just goes to show how much it’s irritating him. Wes doesn’t like to admit anything is wrong if he can avoid it.

Travis frowns thoughtfully. “From when I grabbed you? That time I flew and save your life? Dude, that was like three days ago.”

“I _know_. How do you think I feel?” Wes rolls his eyes and squirms again.

And Travis feels a little bad, because he knows how irritating broken feathers can be, and if Wes hasn’t taken care of them in three days, it’s probably a spot he can’t reach on his own. And Wes is too damn stubborn to go to anyone else for help.

“I’ll help,” he offers almost before he realizes what he’s saying.

Wes stops fidgeting and stares at him.

“Oh, don’t look so scandalized. We’re partners, it’s perfectly normal to groom each other. Besides, it is my fault.”

(Travis is admitting culpability. Dr. Ryan would be so proud.)

Wes continues to stare, to the point that Travis starts feeling uncomfortable. “If you don’t want me to help, just say it, man.”

“No, it’s…it’s fine.” Wes looks down, fiddles with his pen. “It’s fine.”

“Okay. Good.” Travis looks down too, feeling awkward all of a sudden. “See you after work, then.”

\---

It’s nothing weird. Grooming is a natural urge and there’s nothing strange about two people who care about one another grooming together. Travis has groomed lots of people before: foster brothers, foster sisters, girlfriends…ex-girlfriends…

Okay. It’s a little weird, but only because the media makes it out as this super intimate thing done between family or couples. (Mostly couples. Travis has watched more than a few pieces of porn start out with sexy grooming.)

But they’re _partners_. Travis is closer to Wes than anyone else. If he thinks about it, it’s almost weirder that they _haven’t_ groomed each other before this.

They’re partners. It’s fine. It’s only weird if they make it weird.

\---

“It turns out you didn’t have to come after all.”

Travis feigns surprise. “You mean the broken feathers fell out, all by themselves? ‘Cuz I know you didn’t let someone else touch you.”

“That exactly what I mean,” Wes lies through his teeth.

“You’re a lying liar who lies,” Travis declares, pushing his way into the hotel room. “If it makes you feel better, I brought beer.”

“That doesn’t make me feel better at all.” Wes shuts the door and crosses his arms. “This is awkward. I change my mind.”

“It’s only weird if you make it weird, Wes,” Travis chirps, setting the six-pack on the counter. He claps his hands. “Alright, let’s do this.”

Wes flushes. “I don’t know that I’m comfortable with this.”

Travis knows all about Wes’s boundaries. He also knows that Wes has been in pain for three days, and it’s making him irritable and twitchy. As a good partner, he will do his due diligence and make it better. 

“Come on, Wes, don’t be like that. This is _good_ , you’ll see. It’ll bring us _closer together_ like Dr. Ryan always says.”

“I just don’t think this is a good idea,” Wes grits out.

“Aww, are you shy? Is it because I still have my shirt on?” Travis asks sympathetically. “Don’t worry, man, I’m willing to make the sacrifice.” He shrugs out of his jacket and grabs the bottom of his shirt.

Wes flushes all the way down his neck. “Oh my god, no, that’s not—Travis!”

Beaming, Travis tosses his shirt on a chair. “Alright, your turn!”

Wes gives him a resigned look. “You’re not going to go away, are you?”

Travis’s wings puff up like a peacock, and he bounces onto the end of the bed. “Not even a little.”

Wes sighs and, grumbling under his breath about ‘idiotic stubborn-ass partners’, strips off his jacket and shirt. 

For the first time in over a year, Travis sees his partner’s wings, and his throat goes dry.

\---

They’re lovely. Travis forgot how lovely Wes’s wings actually are, when they aren’t lifelessly grey. Every feather is sleek and glossy and as black as a moonless night. People used to make fun of Wes’s wings for being as black as a fledgling (behind his back and never in front of Travis, Travis made sure they got the hint). Black is such a rare color in adults, and most experts say it means indecision, a crippling inability to know oneself. Travis thinks it’s wonderful. It just means Wes is starting with a clean slate: he can become anyone he wants to from here.

He resists touching until they’re both sitting on the bed. “Spread them?” he requests.

Wes obliges. He spreads the right wing, then the left, hissing a little as he does. Travis can see the broken feathers, jagged ends sticking right where Wes’s left wing meets his back, but Travis takes a moment to run his hands over the smooth shining length of Wes’s wings.

“They’re bigger than I remember,” he murmurs.

“I know.” Wes’s right wing flexes; he holds his left wing perfectly still to avoid rubbing the broken feathers the wrong way. With a scowl, he glares over his shoulder at the feathered appendages. “It’s a pain in the ass. Any bigger and they won’t fit under my jacket anymore.”

“So they _are_ getting bigger.”

Wes shrugs, turning forward again. “I may admit that Dr. Ryan is helping. Somewhat. Working through our issues…maybe, sort of is helping me work through some of my own.”

“Wow.” Travis grins, running his hands over the carpal joints again. “Did it hurt to say that? Like an actual, physical pain?”

“You know what’s an actual, physical pain? Me whacking you in the face with my wing.”

“Alright, alright, I get it.” Reluctantly, Travis stops fondling Wes’s wings. “Okay, spread it as far as you can.”

Wes tucks his right wing up against his back, spreading and angling the left one forward so Travis can reach the broken feathers.

Travis’s fingers are tender and light, gently skimming over Wes’s axillaries and pulling the loose feathers away. He tosses the feathers in a tiny pile at his side, a downy pile of pitch lying stark on the bland hotel bedspread. Broken shafts prick his fingertips and there’s a spot in the middle of Wes’s back that’s been rubbed red and raw.

“Man, you should have mentioned something days ago,” Travis murmurs, rubbing his thumbs over the sore spot with no pressure behind the touch.

Wes shifts uncomfortably, wings opening and closing uncertainly. “There wasn’t really a time. That day, we were fighting, and the day after that we caught the Marcoby case, and anyway, it didn’t really start bothering me until last night. I was going to take care of it myself.”

“Yeah? By twisting like a pretzel? It’s right in the middle of your back, you can’t _reach_ , dumbass.”

Wes shoots him an annoyed glower. “I was _married_ , Travis. Alex would have been perfectly fine helping me out.”

“You shouldn’t be going to Alex, dude,” Travis says archly, trying not to sound sullen or, god forbid, jealous. “I’m your partner. We should be able to do this sort of thing.”

Again, that flutter of awkward uncertainty. “It’s weird.”

“Only weird if we make it weird.” Travis runs his fingers gently through Wes’s axillaries again, feeling for any broken feathers he might have missed.

Wes shivers under his hands. “We’re not a couple, you know,” he says, like that’s the only people who could possibly do this, like the only ones who have the right are people who are dating or sleeping together.

“No.” Travis swallows, tells himself not to let this get weird. “We’re partners. We trust each other with our _lives_ , man. Why won’t you trust me with your wings?”

“I’m not…” Wes hesitates, shoulders rolling forward, though his wings don’t move from Travis’s touch. “I’m not _hiding_. Exactly.”

And all of a sudden they’re a lot deeper than Travis intended. Except hasn’t this been what every conversation of theirs is really about? That underlying question Wes won’t answer and Travis can’t figure out, that inexhaustible _Why?_

“Yeah?” he asks, calm and non-committal. No judgement ‘cuz that’ll make Wes clam up faster than a jet plane.

“I’m _not_.” Wes protests the accusation Travis didn’t make. “I’m just…” He takes a breath. Lets it out. “If you’re wingless, no one expects anything. It was…for a while, it was easier to have no one expect anything from me than to be defective.”

“You’re not defective,” Travis argues, burying his hands in pitch feathers like he can impart his belief into his partner.

Wes makes an odd little noise in his throat and arches his back. _You’re making it weird_ , Travis realizes, but he doesn’t stop.

“I am,” Wes says tightly, like he’s trying not to make any more embarrassing sounds. “I’m so broken it’s not even funny.”

It’s more than anything Wes has admitted in a long, long time. It’s also not exactly untrue. Wes has a lot of issues and everyone knows it. His insecurity about his wings is not the biggest problem he’s got. But there’s something heartbreaking about the way Wes said it, bleak and hopeless as though he can’t see a way to work through it all.

(That’s how people lose their wings. Travis is not going to let that happen.)

His partner is hurting and Travis doesn’t know how to make him feel better except to hurt with him.

“I lost a hand and a half of my wings after Paekman died,” Travis confesses.

Wes twists to glower at him, sadly tugging his wings out of Travis’s grip in the process. “You did _not_.”

“Did too.”

“No way. I would have noticed.”

“Normally, yes, your powers of observation are that good. But I kind of…” He pauses, searching for the right word.

Wes’s eyes narrow. “You cheated. I don’t know how, but you cheated.”

Travis shrugs a little sheepishly. “I guess that’s as good a word as any.”

“Really?” Wes stares at Travis’s wings like he can parse out the answer. “ _How?_ ”

Another shrug. Travis tries not to feel like he’s ripping out his soul and laying it on a platter. “I learned pretty quick in the system that the psychologists didn’t care what colors my wings were so much as whether or not they were a healthy wingspan. I looked up the ideal length for my age, and ever since, it’s stayed what it’s supposed to be. If I ever lose any bone and muscle, my primaries and secondaries grow longer to make up the difference and no one knows.”

Wes stares at him.

Then his lips twitch.

“Over—”

“Oh, come on, don’t say it.”

“It’s just so funny.” Wes smirks. “I mean, you of all people, overcompensating the size of your wings with the length of your feathers? It’s pretty damn hilarious.”

Travis gives him a light shove. “Shut up, man.”

Wes laughs. It’s not an annoyed sound, or bitter, or mean. It’s a little tired, but there’s humor in the sound, and that’s enough to make Travis chuckle.

“We are so screwed up,” Wes sighs, dropping his head.

Travis leans forward, resting his forehead against Wes’s. “But at least we’re screwed up together. I’d rather have that then all the sky in the world.”

Wes stares at him, blue meeting blue. This close, there’s no lying, no hiding. There’s just Travis and Wes and the breaths passing between them.

This is a moment. Travis is struck by the thought. There’s something here, something that’s apparently been building while he wasn’t looking. Or maybe it was built a long time ago, from the moment he woke up with wings that matched his partner’s, and the thing between them just got lost in the shuffle as everything fell down around them.

But now, now they’ve been rebuilding, fighting to get back to what they were before, and the structure may be gone but the foundations are still there and solid.

If they take this moment, everything will be different. They _can’t_ go back to the way things were. But maybe they can make something different, something _better_. Travis knows he wants to.

They can weather the storm, Travis knows; after everything they’ve been through, they can stand against anything that comes.

They’ve always been birds of a feather. He doubts this will change anything at all.

He extends his wings in wary invitation. “It’s only weird if you make it weird,” he whispers, and he’s glad his voice doesn’t betray how much he wants this.

Thin lips crook upward, and Wes’s wings reach forward. “It’s not weird at all.”

They touch.

Feathers on feathers, pitch black against rainbow, and there’s a spark, a frisson of energy that goes straight down Travis’s spine to his groin. Travis’s heart is thumping in his chest, grown wings of its own and fluttering wildly, and he hasn’t felt this nervous since the first time he asked a girl out. His head spins in a giddy swirl of motion.

He’s freefalling and it terrifies him, but he can’t help wanting more.

\---

They don’t have sex. They _could_ have sex, the moment is ripe for it and they’re both shirtless so it would be an easy progression, but they don’t because this is not a cheap porno. Emotionally fueled sex to drive away the demons until they can’t think anymore is not the way to create a lasting relationship. And of all the things he never realized he wanted, Travis wants a relationship with Wes. He figures they’ve stuck it out this long, they’re going to be together forever through thick and thin, so they don’t need to jump into anything right now. 

Besides, this is Wes; Travis wants to do things right. 

\---

Travis dreams he’s flying. He’s soaring in the air, wings spread wide, and then he looks over and sees Wes, matching him stroke for stroke.

Wes looks over. He smiles.

And a small part of Travis goes, _Oh_. And it all makes sense, all at once, the way things sometimes do in dreams. He doesn’t need any explanations or excuses. It just _is_. They’re together and they’re flying and it’s all right.

And then he wakes up, and he remembers the flying but nothing else. He feels there was something important he figured out, but it’s already fading away…

\---

He wakes up in a tangle of limbs with feathers in his face. Gentle as he can, he untangles them, taking a moment to stare down at his partner.

In sleep, Wes looks…comfortable. He doesn’t splay all over the bed like Travis does (yet another attention-seeking behavior, past psychologists have said), rather, he lies still, taking up as little space as possible, wings tucked neatly against his back. Wes actually looks relaxed for once.

Travis runs his hand over Wes’s wing. The limb flutters and flexes, but Wes doesn’t wake. Travis does it again. He can’t even imagine what Dr. Ryan will say when she finds out. Probably congratulate them on taking that next step in their relationship because she’s like that.

The third time he caresses Wes’s wing, the blonde mumbles incoherently and rolls over, burying his face in the pillow. Through no fault of Wes’s, this results in Travis getting a face full of feathers. Again.

“Nice, dude,” Travis mutters affectionately, carefully dislodging Wes’s wing and doing his best not to wake his partner.

Then he sees it, and he freezes.

Wes’s wings look completely black, but they’re not. In the thin morning sun streaming through the window, the feathers shine and the color is obvious. Mostly black, yes, but on the underside of Wes’s lesser coverts is a straight line of purple.

In fact, it looks like…

Travis pulls his wing forward and checks. Yup, not only is it in the same place as the purple on his own wings, it’s the exact same shade.

“You sneaky bastard,” Travis says admiringly. “How’d you manage that?”

“We’re partners,” Wes murmurs.

Travis drops the blonde’s wing like a hot potato. “I swear I wasn’t being creepy.”

Wes grins up at him from the pillow. “I don’t know. Fondling my wing while I’m asleep? That seems pretty creepy to me…”

“Shut up. You let me fondle.”

Wes chuckles, sitting up and rolling his shoulders. His wings flex, and the sun catches that stripe of purple again.

“How long have you had that?”

A shrug. “Since after we talked to Dr. Ryan about Paekman. We probably got it about the same time.”

“I never noticed.”

“Well, you _wouldn’t_.” Wes rolls his eyes, climbing to his feet. “Besides,” he adds as he heads into the bathroom, “purple is…”

He pauses. Travis fills in the blanks. Purple is worry, uncertainty, anxiety, _fear_.

He can almost hear Wes shrug. “I figured it was better not to mention it.”

There’s a lot Travis could say to that. What he settles on is, “I’m going to tell Dr. Ryan. She’s going to be so happy we’re starting to match.”

Wes pokes his head out and glares at Travis. “Don’t you dare.”

“It’s a good thing, Wes! It means we’re getting _closer_!”

The blonde points accusingly. “You do and I will _end_ you.”

This moment is just too perfect; Travis can’t help but laugh. He feels light and relaxed and giddy, like he’s floating with his feet planted on the ground. It’s not quite like soaring, but it’s close.

And that’s when Travis realizes.

His laughter stops abruptly. “Oh,” he says quietly, eyes widening. “ _Oh_.”

He leaps up, wings flapping excitedly, and rushes to the bathroom. “Wes! I figured it out! I know why I flew.”

Wes makes a sound around the floss in his mouth. Travis takes it as Wes saying _Wow Travis that sounds so interesting please tell me more_.

He grins. “It was you.”

The floss stops moving, and Wes’s eyes flick to meet his in the mirror. Wes makes a baffled, “Hah?”

Travis dances in the doorway. “It’s so _obvious_ , I don’t know why I missed it. Of _course_ it was you, it’s _always_ you!”

Wes pulls his hands out of his mouth, turns to face him. “What are you talking about?”

“When you fell! Do you remember that?”

“Yes, Travis, I remember that.” Wes doesn’t roll his eyes but it’s in his voice.

Travis backs out of the doorway, pacing in the narrow hallway. His wings continue to move in excited flurries because this is brilliant, it really is, why didn’t he see it before?

“You fell,” he explains, “and I caught you. And I knew I couldn’t fall because I had _you_ in my arms and if I fell you would too. So I flew!”

He pauses, turns to face his partner in the doorway. “That’s what it’s about, right? Absolute faith, for whatever reason, that you won’t fall out of the sky. Wes, _you’re_ my reason.”

Wes blushes all the way down his neck. “That’s the cheesiest thing I’ve ever head you say.”

“But it’s _true_.”

“It may be true,” Wes says as he returns to the bathroom, “but it’s still cheesy as hell.”

Travis just laughs and follows Wes. “I think we should do it,” he announces, tucking his wings in so he can fit in the bathroom without crowding them both.

“Do what?” Wes gets another piece of floss, leans in towards the mirror. 

“We should go flying.” Travis tucks up against Wes’s back, running his hands down Wes’s feathers. He doesn’t like seeing Wes’s wings like this, tucked in and trying to be small. They should be out, spread proudly for all the world to see. “You, me, and the sky.”

“How would that work?” Wes scoffs, shivering under his hands.

Travis grins over his partner’s shoulder. “I’ll have faith in you, and you’ll have faith in me, and we’ll fly.”

Wes meets his gaze in the mirror, looking dumbfounded. Travis continues to grin. “Brilliant, right?” He preens at his genius.

“That’s completely absurd,” Wes retorts, flaring his wings in an effort to get Travis to back off. It doesn’t work—Travis just leans in closer and wraps them both in his own wings.

“It’ll work,” Travis promises. “It’s you and me. We can do anything together. Even defy gravity.”

Wes is silent, obviously contemplating the suggestion. Travis nuzzles the back of his neck while Wes thinks, keeping him close in the colorful cocoon of his wings.

Finally, Wes…elbows him in the ribs.

“Oof!” Travis staggers back, dramatically clutching his side.

“Go away,” Wes grumbles, “I have to finish in here,” and Travis is bummed because he thought it was a genius idea, he really did.

“Go, go.” Wes shoos him with a wing, turning back to the mirror, and then he says, “We’ll talk about it when I’m done,” and Travis goes out grinning.

It’s not going to be as easy as all that, Travis knows that. They both have a lot of things to work through before either of them can think about flying for even a short hop. Wes isn’t ready to show his wings, let alone fly on them, and Travis’s issues range from ‘abandonment’ to ‘commitment’ and everything in between. They both have a long way to before they can soar the way he dreams.

Plus, Travis muses, plopping on the bed and draping his wings out, taking up as much space as he possibly can. He picks one of Wes’s broken feathers off the floor and twirls it in his fingers. Plus, there’s this whole new layer to their relationship they have to work through. It’s not weird—it actually feels right in a way none of his other relationships have—but it _is_ new and it’ll take some getting used to.

And the only way they match is with a line of purple. That’s no real way to start something.

But they’re better than they were. Travis smiles as Wes steps out of the bathroom, chest bare and black wings held aloft. They’ve only just started but they’re getting there.

“Come here, you,” he growls playfully, pulling Wes down in a flurry of feathers. Wes squawks with surprise and Travis laughs.

This feeling in his chest, light and airy and wonderful, put there because of the man in his arms?

It feels like flying.


End file.
